Grayling Merges Atomic Into US Operations

SAN FRANCISCO — Grayling is doing away with its edgier subsidiary Atomic, folding the shop into its US operations at the start of 2014.

In September, when Grayling announced its rebranding and consolidation, CEO Pete Pedersen alluded to this outcome.

“You’ll see a lot more joint pitches and staff swaps — indicating the general direction of the business,” Pedersen said in September. “Atomic is operating as a business unit of Grayling, so we can be either Atomic or Grayling, depending on client needs.”

Grayling’s parent company Hunstworth acquired Atomic in 2011. Having grown to nearly $20m in revenues, Atomic is best known in Silicon Valley for its analytics platform and work on consumer tech brands like Mint, Polaroid and Sony. The firm was recently named agency of record for Chinese mobile brand ZTE.

With this move, Grayling will now have more than 300 people in the US, across 11 offices. Worldwide, Grayling has 53 offices and brought in about $132 million of fee income in 2012 — down nearly 8% on the prior year.

Atomic co-founder Andy Getsey will assume the role of EVP at Grayling, while co-founder James Hannon becomes Grayling’s chief data strategist. The duo will co-chair Grayling’s US technology practice.

Earlier this week, Grayling announced former MSLGroup executive, Peter Harris, as its new US CEO.